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Don’t hold it against me, but several days ago I watched CNN’s Anderson Cooper interview presidential candidate Bernie Sanders at a town-hall forum. Someone in the audience asked Sanders how he would respond to critics who say he has no religious faith or spirituality. Sanders insisted that he does indeed have a religious/spiritual faith. He went on to elaborate that his spiritual faith is found in his strong desire to correct injustice in the world. Sanders said he has always been like that, even when he was a kid in school he stuck up for kids who got bullied by bigger kids. Sanders said he simply hates injustice in society and he’s dedicated his life to fighting it. I immediately felt sad for Sanders and his tragic confusion regarding good works. Why? The Bible verses below guide us on this topic:

James 2:17-18 (ERV)
“If it is just faith and nothing more—if it doesn’t do anything—it is dead. But someone might argue, ‘Some people have faith, and others have good works.’ My answer would be that you can’t show me your faith if you don’t do anything. But I will show you my faith by the good I do.”

At first glance the verse above seems to support Sander’s worldview, but it doesn’t. This principle is a sword that cuts both ways. Faith without good works is dead and meaningless. But good works without faith is also dead and meaningless. The two are essential to have any heavenly value. Don’t believe it? Read the following two verses:

Isaiah 64:6
“All our righteous acts are like filthy rags.”

Hebrews 11:6
“And without faith it is impossible to please God.”

Don’t get me wrong, some of the values Sander’s embraces are in alignment with those taught by Christ. But without embracing Christ first and foremost, those values fall squarely into the realm of the secular world, and that makes them subject to change and interpretation according to the whims of whoever happens to be in power. Some of the most horrible things imaginable throughout human history have been committed by men who perverted God’s values because those men did not really know God.

Sander’s strives to convince us to embrace elements of socialism, though he offers no assurance as to how socialism will not be corrupted by sinful people (as history has shown us) with the predictable result that a small segment of political and financially connected elites will siphon off the wealth of our country while the rest of us get the leftovers, if any. Sadly, many of my conservative brothers and sisters are in denial that capitalism is headed in the same direction as socialism because of fallen humanity’s ability to corrupt every socioeconomic system that a country embraces. The solution is not the adoption of another system of order such as socialism. The ONLY solution is for Americans to re-embrace Christ.

God gave Bernie Sanders the gift of hunger for justice. It would be a tragedy if Sanders never learned to worship the Giver of that gift. Without a relationship with the Giver, the gift can only frustrate. Flawed human beings can never enjoy complete satisfaction deep in our souls via our gifts unless we embrace the Giver. If you try to do it without the Giver, that’s vanity.

“He who seeks from God
anything less than God
esteems the gifts of God
more than the Giver.
Has God, then, no reward?
None save Himself.”